Free The Sun Chemist by Lionel Davidson

have such a fan. People are delighted to have him in Rehovot. Where is your Finnish friend?’
    ‘I don’t think they’ve invited her.’
    ‘Maybe they did, and she knew how unpleasant you were.’
    ‘Has she some other special friend since I was here?’
    ‘I don’t like these questions. Ask her yourself. Igor, you’ve been drinking. I don’t like you at all.’
    ‘You see, it’s a sad life, Connie. I sat in Chaimchik’s room and read over his last memoranda.’
    ‘In that case, you can have a drink. Life is sad,’ she said as we had one, ‘but – I have to say it – your reaction is childish. The Israelis here are putting on a show for you. Life at the present is not just sad but tragic, and I don’t even know how to explain it. How can a person like you not see this?’
    ‘Connie, have you been having one?’
    ‘Well, I did have one, but it isn’t that. People come here and they have only read about it in the newspaper. A most tremendous tragedy has happened here. Two and a half thousand young men were killed in a fortnight – can you imagine! And people try to carry on, and you tell me life is sad because you sat in Chaimchik’s room, an old man of seventy-eight, at the end of his life. And I know what you mean – but still. Oh, well, it’s sad,’ she said.
    ‘Did I give offense in some way?’
    ‘I am the one giving the offense. But at least – realize things are not normal. I should not be saying this. I want to say it toeverybody, but it’s wrong. Really, I don’t know why I’m saying it to you.’
    I knew why she was saying it. The sense of enormity had hit me often enough. But with me, my family, these figures were so trivial, the disillusion so slight. I said, ‘Connie, it’s a world of terrible mistakes and accidents. I don’t know why you feel this way particularly, I mean just particularly tonight. But if you do, I’m sorry. And I’ll be terribly nice to Doctor Patel if it will help.’
    I was smiling at her, so she smiled back, and presently I did go and have a chat with Patel. It was a lengthy chat, I remember, but the strange thing was that I couldn’t recall any of it later, though I tried.
    *
    I had a further Scotch or two with Ham after the throng had gone, and woke with a headache.
    It was a day of headaches, anyway.
3
    There was a very peculiar memo of Chaimchik’s that I pored over. He had evidently not been having a good day either. It was November 7, 1952, and the memo went on, with spaces, over several pages. It seemed to have started early, because there was something about his breakfast, and the next item was immediately about Vava.
    I particularly want those appointed to superintend the matter [next words missed] my absolute conviction that Kutcholsky’s contribution is a major break-through, the equal if not more [ CLOSTRIDIA ?]. My excuse must be that at the time we were not investigating such questions, and after much harassment I needed the rest, although I admit it to be no excuse and a demonstration of blindness. In which connection it is ironic that in my present blindness I am able …
    He appeared to have lost the track here, and he said his mouth was furred. There was some trouble with his teeth.
    After a space, Vava returned.
    As I have written [?] Kutcholsky with his large amounts of carotene and other substances [?] naturally several difficulties. But it isnecessary to work with and not against nature, and in fact it gives us the key, even the trigger, to tremendously increased yields, which we have found in the work with Ketone Bill. We have produced a most elegant reaction, certainly with a very large conversion to methyl. He has the lab books himself. There can be no doubt that with the methyl already present together with the carotene that it is the answer to the problem.
    Such [catalysis?] taken with his halving of the time of fermentation will double the yield and provide a ketonic product of extreme concentration making immediately